SpaceWar.com reports: “Taiwan said Friday that China had deployed warships for ‘military operations’ stretching hundreds of kilometres from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea, posing a ‘threat’ to the region.

Beijing, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, neither confirmed nor denied the manoeuvres.

Taiwan’s defence ministry and other security agencies were monitoring China’s activities and had a ‘complete grasp of the situation’, presidential office spokeswoman Karen Kuo told reporters.

She did not say how many Chinese ships were involved in the deployment, but a security source told AFP the number was ‘significant’. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The operations were not limited to the Taiwan Strait, but extended from the southern Yellow Sea, to the East China Sea near the disputed Diaoyu Islands and on into the South China Sea and even the Western Pacific, Kuo said…”